Posts Tagged ‘teen smokers’

A new smoking legislation designed to filter smokers from parks and recreation spaces is in the works in the Town of Lakeshore. If the ordinances enforced inhabitants won’t be able to smoke tobacco and cigarettes in parks, playgrounds and sports fields in Lakeshore. Stacey Lanoue brings her two kids to play at Lakeshore Park. She supports the new ordinance. “That’s something that’s really disappointing ; when people are smoking cigs and we walk through the tobacco smoke,” Lanoue declared. “As non-smokers, it is frustrating. “Lakeshore’s youth council brought the proposed legislation to town council.

The Windsor Essex County Health Unit also investigated 88 teens in Lakeshore and found that most of them want public places to be smoke-free.

Zach Marchand is on the youth council and argued that this is the first idea by youth council to be considered for a law.

“Nobody likes seeing the cigarettes butts lying around. It just makes it look dirty,” he added. “But a lot of the teens are trying to move towards a healthier lifestyle. And they’re realizing the affects of tobacco smoking and how bad it is to health.”

Here’s hoping Kentucky shared in the national decrease in teenager smoking habit found recently by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. USA Today attributes an “historic decline in smoking tobacco,” not just among teenagers but across all age groups, to a 62-cent raise in the federal cig tax in 2009. Increasing the federal tax to $1.01 a package has brought in almost $30 billion in new income to the U.S. revenues. Meantime, some 3 million fewer Americans smoked in 2011 than in 2009, even though the inhabitants has increased. USA Today credits the federal cigarette tax hike with restarting a long-term decrease in smoking habit that had delayed.

Kentucky also raised its cigarette tax in 2009. But instead of the 70 cents proposed by Gov. Steve Beshear, the legislature wimped out and enforced only a 30-cent per package increase.

At 60 cents a package, Kentucky’s cigarette tax remains well below the national average of $1.49 and is lower than four of our seven surrounding states.

That’s a big part of why Kentucky nearly always leads the nation in percent of smokers, both adults and teens, and why pregnant Kentuckians smoke at double the national rate.

Smoking rate takes a very serious cause on Kentucky’s health and state economy. Almost all smokers start smoking habit by age 18, and teenagers are especially sensitive to increases in the cigarettes prices.

Imported tobacco products must have graphic health warning on packages starting with today. One of three approved images will occupy half the space on both sides of a cigarette package. A third of the remaining space will display a written warnings. The new packaging has been introduced across the GCC in an effort to stop teenagers from becoming addicted to smoking tobacco, declared Dr Wedad Al Maidoor, head of the smoking control committee at the Ministry of Health. “Teen smokers will finally start to think about the dangers of smoking cigs and either cut down the number of cigs they are smoking every day.”

Dr. Al Maidoor argued that the graphics would also prevent tobacco industries from using packs for to advertise their tobacco product.

“With their packaging, they are tricking the clients into thinking that smoking is something that is very cool and stylish, that it is an important part of their life. Now this will be taken very very seriously. The graphic warnings cannot be removed or peeled off because it is a part of the pack.”

There are also new suggestions for plain packaging, where nothing but the graphic picture will be in colour and the smoking brand name will be meaningly smaller.

Smokers may not see the new pack designs for a while, with tobacco sellers given several months to complete the ordinances. Existing cigarettes stock will continue to be sold until they are emptied, which is expected to take about three months, concluded Abdulla Al Muaini of the Emirates Standardisation and Metrology Authority, which is in charge of the new pack design.

New study findings released today show new insight into the use and awareness of electronic cigs, devices that permit smokers to inhale vaporized nicotine. According to a peer-reviewed scientific posts in the American Journal of Public Health, 40.2 per cent of Americans have heard of e-cigarette and over 70 per cent believe that they are less dangerous than other tobacco products. In addition, smokers are more apt to use electronic cigarettes than non-smokers. This is the first nationally representative study to look at awareness and influence of these products.

E-cigarettes, officially known as Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS), really are drug-delivery devices and not cigarettes at all. They have recently earned attention in the media, public health and public policy arenas. While proponents claim e-cigarettes are a harm-reducing alternative to smoking, scientists have increased concerns about the need for ordinance of any new nicotine-delivery product, as well as how they might affect smokers who are trying to stop smoking, or attract non smokers, especially youngsters, who might be willing to try a “high-tech” approach to nicotine intake or be allured by the availability of tobacco flavors.

“The study suggest that younger smokers are more likely to have ever tried to smoke electronic cigarette,” declared Jennifer Pearson, PhD, Research Investigator at the Schroeder Institute at Legacy. “We don’t know why youth are more likely to try e-cigs, but this highlights the need for more information on the health and behavioral consequences of exclusive ‘vaping’ and dual use with combustible smoking products.”

While governments of several countries are thinking of enforcing bans on attractive cigarettes packaging for to reduce the mortality rates linked with smoking habit, tobacco industries are out with much more attractive packs to allure young inhabitants. It has been found that the companies are going to bring out the new packaging very soon, which would be similar to fragrance or will be helped with lids that will throw open like a lighter.

Although, it has been realized from the past investigation that the companies’ plans to tempt young people has reduced meaningly since the past few years. It is being alleged that the new packs will be far more attractive than the previous ones and will alluring more teenagers for to start smoking.

Latest study put forth by the Department of Health, Cancer Research UK established the new tactics that the tobacco industry has utilized for the marketing of the smoking products are much more discouraging.

The research suggested that because of the attractive packs, as young as six year old kids fall into the smoking habit. The Director of smoking control for the charity, Jean King maintained that the children in the age group ranging between six and 11 are easily attracted towards the tempting packages.

He emphasized that the kids without acknowledging the side-effects of the smoking product in the due course of their life, just fall into this habit.

Scientists have found a number of previously unknown networks in the human brain, which go a long way towards explaining why some teens are more capable to trying and even to start using drugs and alcohol, but others don’t. The largest imaging investigation of the teenagers brain involved 1,896 14-year-olds. Robert Whelan and Hugh Garavan of the University of Vermont, along with a large group of international colleagues, reported that the differences in these networks had strong signed that some teens are at higher risk for drug and alcohol experimentation only because their brains work in a different way, making them more nervous.

This new discovery helps to give an answer a long-standing chicken-or-egg question about whether brain exemplar come before drug use-or are caused by it.

“The distinction in these networks seem to introduce drug use,” declared Garavan, Whelan’s colleague in UVM’s psychiatry department, who also served as the main investigator of the Irish component of a large European study project, named IMAGEN, that gathered the facts about the teens in the new research.

In a key finding, decreased activity in a network containing the “orbito frontal cortex” is linked with experimentation with alcohol, cigs and even illicit drugs in early of their adolescence.

The scientists were also observed that other recently discovered networks are connected with the symptoms of attention-lack hyperactivity disorder. These ADHD networks are different from those associated with early drug use.

This is a national day of activism for youths worldwide to take a stand and speak out against big tobacco. If we can keep our youths from ever trying tobacco, there is a greater chance they will never become one of the 4,400 people who die each year in Colorado as a result of tobacco use. About 90 percent of adult tobacco users began before they were 18 years old. Tobacco use is a burden for everyone — not only for the individual’s health and related expenses, but also for the entire state, which pays $1.3 billion for smoking-related health costs each year.

Children and teens can be easily influenced by tobacco companies through movies, advertising, friends and other sources. Teens may not realize how addictive nicotine is and are often unaware of the serious health consequences they might face over time. Tobacco use leads to cancer, heart disease, emphysema, osteoporosis, infertility, hypertension and early wrinkling and skin changes.

Tobacco companies are constantly inventing new products in order to appeal to our youths and to gain new customers. Clear evidence of this is reflected in the new dissolvable tobacco products — sticks, strips and orbs. These products consist of finely ground tobacco along with highly addictive nicotine and are absorbed in the mouth. People can only speculate what other dangerous chemicals are in these products, since they are not currently regulated by the FDA.

These products, being test marketed in Colorado, can easily be hidden and used without parents or teachers knowing. They look like breath mints, strips and toothpicks, and the containers are cellphone-shaped. Young children and infants are at risk for overdose if they ingest them.

The Colorado State Board of Health, of which I am a member, passed a resolution asking R.J. Reynolds Co. to info/experts-reviewers-of-top-selling-cigarette-brands until the FDA had an opportunity to review them. Soon after, the Colorado Public Health Association and the Pueblo City-County Health Department’s Board of Health also passed similar resolutions. R.J. Reynolds immediately responded that they would not remove the products from Colorado. This sent a message from R.J. Reynolds inferring the state health board’s resolution is of no significance to them — and the health of Coloradans is not a concern.

According to the 2008 Healthy Kids Colorado Survey, three out of four high school students in Pueblo County who tried to purchase tobacco were successful.

Colorado does not require a license to sell tobacco. Requiring licenses of tobacco retailers would allow for local enforcement to educate retailers and watch for illegal sales to minors. The health department and the Pueblo Tobacco Education and Prevention Partnership’s coalition would like to eliminate illegal sales of tobacco to minors in our community and licensing can be effective.